Arizona Animal Welfare League & SPCA

Reviews 3

MO

Molly Walker

On Sunday August 21st we went to the Arizona Animal Welfare League looking for an energetic cat to come home and be a playmate for our 11 month old kitten. We found a kitten that seemed to fit our needs and brought him home for a slumber party. When we picked him up we mentioned that he had sneezed a couple times and was told this was normal. After a few days at home it was apparent that the two young boys had bonded. The new kitten had been sneezing each day still and we mentioned this when saying that we were going to adopt him. We were told to bring him back in to AAWL to get a free exam and could get a prescription if needed. We did this the next Saturday thinking that we would get him back a couple hours later. We were told we couldn’t fill out the adoption paperwork at that time and could do so when we picked him up. 5 hours passed without a call. We called to get an update and were told that we’d get a call back in 5 minutes. After a half hour we decided to go to the shelter to get him. When we got there we were told that he had been put in the infirmary and couldn’t get him back for 10 days! This wasn’t even an option given to us. The explanation given was so that he wouldn’t infect our current cat. But the kitten had already been with him for a week, so our cat was already exposed and got sick the very next day. On Sunday after thinking over what happened we sent an email with this information and more questions. We wanted to get the kitten back right away, we didnt understand why we couldnt treat him at home. We got no response to our emails so on Monday we tried calling AAWL all day. We were unable to get anyone to answer the phone at any of the extensions we tried. Monday afternoon we were finally able to get in contact with the CEO, who said she had seen the email and we would be getting the cat back and that the COO was working on it, she promised a call back that night. We did not receive a call and on Tuesday we were eventually able to get the COO on the phone. She indicated that we could get the kitten on Wednesday after they had finished cleaning the shelter due to a upper respiratory infection that was spreading in the facility. After not being contacted all day Wednesday we went down to pick him up. We were told the vet was going to do one last check and we could get him in an hour. While we were out waiting to go back, we got a call saying that we couldn’t get him and had to wait until the full 10 day treatment was up. We were very disappointed but wanted what was best for the kitten. When the 10 days was up the following Tuesday we called again and were told that the kitten was still not cleared and that the 10 day mark was really Wednesday, but that they were going to keep him until he hit the 14 day mark unless he got better before then. In attempt to better understand why were not able to get the kitten we contacted the COO and she told us that AZ State Veterinary laws would not allow them to release an animal showing any active symptoms of an illness. Why were we not told this from the very beginning? Why did they lead us to believe we could take him home sick and treat him there? Shockingly later that day we get a call from a volunteer (not the COO) telling us that we could come and pick him up. Obviously this was great, but why did we get told 4 hours earlier that it would be another 4 days? When we went down there, we were able to then pick him up with no issues. The lack of communication there is extremely frustrating. What should have been a happy time of adopting a kitten turned into a stressful and frustrating experience. If you find the animal you want to adopt here, make sure to never take them back for a final check. Just go to your own vet.

NA

Name

I can honestly say Im highly disappointed in this place. I purchased a dog from there about two months ago, Anastacia to be exact if you look up her profile. I get these dogs are surrendered or what not however I was assured she was trained inside the house and had no issues as far as being destructive. Well that was a big joke. She was fine for about the first two weeks and everything just went downhill from there. It started from her being potty trained as an inside dog and after those two weeks I would get home from work and there would be pee and poop all over the place inside. It also didnt help that Id come home And she would literally have torn apart my shoes or kid toys!!! Literally lots of money worth which were destroyed. Lets not forget to mention she had access to go in or out, and on top of the fact she destroyed my bathroom!! My doors were always open for her to have access anywhere around the house while I was out. Well one day I decided to run up to the store and was gone for maybe about two hours (with her out roaming the house..she wasnt locked up or anything) and when I came up I saw a bunch of wood chips on the floor downstairs... I followed the trail only to find that she completely tore about my bathroom!! She tore it up so bad to where the grout in the tile was even coming up! The door was completely trashed and scratched up.. the sink was basically torn apart from her putting her entire weight on it. I have pics to prove this mess. It cost hundreds of dollars and the bathroom is still not completely finished. Please do yourselves a favor and do not waste your money on her! I hate to say that because Im such a dog person and just an animal lover in general- but, I was really upset that she did all this damage to my place after having her. Keep in mind.. I kept her about another two in a half or three weeks after that catastrophe to give her continuous chances because I did care... I had to kennel train her and she ended up being able to completely break open the kennel and tear it apart! Just so heartbreaking and I just would not want another family to deal with this like I had to.

A

A Private User

My boyfriend and I adopted a dog there on the first week of February. When we saw him his name, picture wasnt displayed but we asked if he was available. They told us he was available but they didnt seem to know very much of anything about him except they got him and incubated him for being sick, so they never had any interaction with him at all until the day he was released (the same day we adopted him, just a few HOURS prior because we came in the afternoon). He was an incredible sweet dog and we loved him to death but the place didnt tell us how sick he really was. The enire time we had him he was sick. We took him to the vet (that first month for free pet insurance was for a routine checkup, not for problems) The vet gave us a sheet that said he was seriously dehydratd (he wouldnt eat or drink at all since we had him, we took him to the vet just days after adopting) and the vet gave us an outrageous estimate in the thousands for tests. We tried calling AAWL numerous times after that to get any kind of information we could get about him and why he was incubated since they couldnt really tell us on adoption day. Still, to this day we never heard anything back from them of all the calls and messages we left. My dog had seemed to get better but his sickness kept acting like a roller coaster ride.. he was very well and happy, two days later very sick. My dog Peanut died yesterday. We had him less than two months.